“But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.” -- Hebrew 11:6

June 2008 Archives

June 2, 2008

This Day In History: June 2

1953: Elizabeth II crowned queen
On this day in 1953, 27-year-old Elizabeth II, the elder daughter of King George VI, was crowned queen of the United Kingdom at Westminster Abbey, having taken the throne upon her father's death in February 1952.

1997: A jury in Denver, Colorado, found Timothy McVeigh of the militia movement guilty of murder and conspiracy in the deaths of 168 people in the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, and he was executed in June 2001.

1946: In the aftermath of World War II, the people of Italy passed a referendum to replace the governing monarchy with a republic.

June 4, 2008

This Day In History: June 4

2003:
On this day in 2003, American entrepreneur and domestic lifestyle innovator Martha Stewart was indicted on criminal charges in relation to a stock sale, and in 2004 she was convicted and sentenced to five months in prison.
1970:

Book: The Gentleman, The Life of Joseph A. LaFortune

I was recently was in our small town library and came across a book that got my full attention. The book is The Gentlemen, The Life of Joseph A. LaFortune (1979). There is a park in Tulsa named after this man and the previous mayor was a member of the Lafortune family.

I love bios. I had to check out the book so I can figure out the question, What made this man a success? It'll be fun discovering the answer.

Here are 27 other famous successful energy pioneers of Tulsa's past:
(Taken from Energy Advocates website)

June 5, 2008

Jim Daly of Focus On The Family

Jim Daly is the CEO of the Christian non-profit organization, Focus on the Family. Daly recently wrote a book called Finding Home that tells of his difficult childhood. He also was interviewed on Family Life Today. Here are three interesting thirty minute programs.

Three Teenagers

As of June 3, I have three teenage boys. Until the beginning of August, my son's ages are 13, 14 and 15! But this doesn't strike fear into my heart. I have prayed since they were toddlers for these present years.

I'm okay with the challenges they bring. My children are developing their identities. They seek out the coolest personality traits. As their parents they learn from us but for the most part they want to be different. Also, they do not want us as their parents constantly giving them advice on how to do everything. All that's okay. My children don't have the typical peer pressure that most do. My husband and I still have much influence on their decisions. I'm glad for that.

Lessons From A Third Grade Dropout

Dr. Rick Rigsby, Texas A&M Chaplain, wrote a book entitled Lessons From a Third Grade Dropout. It is about his dad and the loving advice he taught him. Here are two days (30 minutes each) of interviews from the radio broadcast on Family Life Today.

Help Others Quote

SELF-PREOCCUPATION,
self-broodings,
self-interest,
self-love,
--these are the reasons why you go jarring against your fellows.
Turn your eyes off yourself; look up, and out!
There are men, your brothers, and women, your sisters;
they have needs that you can aid.
Listen for their confidences;
keep your heart wide open to their calls,
and your hands alert for their service.
Learn to give, and not to take;
to drown your own hungry wants in the happiness of lending yourself to fulfil the interests of those nearest or dearest.
Look up and out, from this narrow, cabined self of yours, and you will jar no longer;
you will fret no more, you will provoke no more;
but you will, to your own glad surprise, find the secret of "the meekness and the gentleness of Jesus";
and the fruits of the Spirit will all bud and blossom from out of your life.
HENRY SCOTT HOLLAND

No Place Like Home

Here's a poem by John Howard Payne that contains the common phrase, "There's no place like home".

'Mid pleasures and palaces though we may roam,
Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home!
A charm from the skies seems to hallow us there,
Which, sought through the world, is ne'er met with elsewhere.
Home! home! sweet, sweet home!
There's no place like home!

DTS: Howard Hendricks

At Dallas Theological Seminary there is a godly well-loved professor who has taught more than 50 years. Just recently I've been reading a copy of his book, Teaching To Change Lives. It was published in 1989. Here is a video (that needs to be on YouTube!) I found @ the Dallas Seminary website.

During our college years, my future husband asked our Sunday School teacher if they knew Howard Hendricks. "He replied, Howard Hendricks!, we majored in Howard Hendricks." As far as I can tell, he is still teaching at the seminary and its been over 50 years. I say this in reverence to the Lord Almighty, to Him be all honor for the service of this servant of His.

Background Of H. Hendricks

In his profile on the Dallas Theological Seminary website, Dr. Howard Hendricks tells of his background. His profile is adapted from a Dallas Morning News article. (His bio is from January 2003). In his own words, Hendricks describes his childhood:

"I was born into a broken home," the 78-year-old man says. "My parents separated when I came along. I split the family."

Reared by his father's mother, Dr. Hendricks says that in elementary school he was a troublemaker, a hell raiser. Probably just acting out a lot of insecurities, he says looking back on his Philadelphia childhood. His fifth-grade teacher had predicted that five boys in class would end up in prison. He was supposed to be one of them. The teacher was right about three of them, Dr. Hendricks says. That teacher, Miss Simon, once tied him to his seat with a rope and taped his mouth shut.

When he introduced himself to his sixth-grade teacher, Miss Noe, she told him something that would change his life forever.

"She said, 'I've heard a lot about you, but I don't believe a word of it,' " he recalls.

She made him realize for the first time in his life that someone cared, he says. "People are always looking for someone to say, 'Hey, I believe in you.' "

What he says makes me think of this, Sometimes you learn to be better from the examples of other lives (they show you how NOT to be).

This Day In History: June 9

1672: Peter I (the Great), Russian Tsar, was born this day in 1672 for whom the city of St. Petersburg is named. He reigned jointly or alone from 1682 to 1725 and was one of his country's greatest statesmen, organizers, and reformers.

1983: Landslide reelection victory for Margaret Thatcher
British Conservative Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, buoyed by victory in the Falkland Islands War and by deep divisions within the opposition Labour Party, was easily reelected to a second term in office this day in 1983.

1942: On this day the residents of the village of Lidice (now in the Czech Republic) were rounded up, most to be massacred the next day in reprisal for the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich, deputy leader of the Nazi paramilitary group SS, by Czech underground fighters.

1940: German tank forces under Major General Erwin Rommel crossed the Seine River in a push to the Atlantic coast of France during World War II.

1891: American composer and lyricist Cole Porter was born in Peru, Indiana.

1870: English writer Charles Dickens, generally considered the greatest Victorian novelist, died at Gad's Hill near Chatham, Kent.

1815: The Final Act of the Congress of Vienna, comprising several agreements separately negotiated among various participants for the reorganization of Europe in the aftermath of the Napoleonic Wars, was signed by representatives of Austria, France, Great Britain, Portugal, Prussia, Russia, and Sweden.

1781: English engineer George Stephenson, the principal inventor of the railroad locomotive, was born.

1358: The Jacquerie, a revolt of French peasants against abuses inflicted upon them by the nobility of northeastern France, suffered a critical defeat at Meaux.

June 11, 2008

Prayer All Through A Day

In the morning~
IT is very helpful to make a habit of offering, morning by morning, the troubles of the day just beginning to our dear Lord, accepting His will in all things, expecially in all little personal trials and vexations. Some persons have found great benefit from making, when first they wake, the act taught to Madame de Chantal by St. Francis de Sales, accepting "all things tolerable and intolerable" for love of Christ;

During the midday~
then at midday, a moment's inward search to see whether there has been any voluntary slackening of submission, any deliberate opposition to God's will, any hesitation in resisting the distaste or fretfulness, the impatience or discouragement we are tempted to feel when things go contrary to our own will and likings, making a fresh resolution to go on heartily;

Then at night~
and, at night, a quick review of the day's failures for which to ask pardon, and strength to go on better anew. Some such habit as this is a great check to that terrible hindrance of the spiritual life which, terrible though it be, is so apt to steal upon many good and earnest souls,--a complaining, grumbling, self-pitying spirit.
H. L. SIDNEY LEAR

Though I walk in the midst of trouble, Thou wilt revive me.
PSALMS 138:7

June 20, 2008

Where I Used To Live

When I was a little girl I used to live here in Oakhurst, Oklahoma (:

View Larger Map
My dad bought the house from his brother in the early '70's and then built on the garage area. We lived there for about 8 years and then sold it to my friend, Angie's parents. I haven't personally seen the house in a couple of decades but my older brother told me it is now used as a fire station.

June 21, 2008

The Courage Of Telemachus

Here's a story I heard on the radio program, Turning Point with Dr. David Jeremiah on OnePlace.com. It is also found in the book Positively Dangerous by Frank Mercadante and the Christian Classic, Foxes Book of Martyrs:

Telemachus was a monk who lived in Asia Minor about the year 400 AD. During his life time gladiatorial games were very popular in Rome.

Grace By Enstrom

Today my husband and I went to a storage facility sale. We got a few odds and ends. I found a small picture in a wooden frame. I always liked the picture because it had a humble presence about it. My father-in-law has a larger copy of it. It is of an elderly man bowing his head before a simple meal of gruel and bread.

The amazing technology of the world wide web gave me answers to questions I've had about this pictures for years! :) I found the website behind this photograph taken in 1918. The site is named "GRACE" by ENSTROM. There I found interesting details to the makings of this picture.

Love the quote by Eric Enstrom . . . "This man doesn't have much of earthly goods, but he has more than most people because he has a thankful heart."

CCR

Cotton Fields

These lyrics are funny, "Now when them cotton bolls get rotten, You can't pick very much cotton, In them old cotton fields back home." My dad's and his family would pick a lot of cotton! They had too! That's the way they would get money to feed their big family in the 1940's.

Jambalaya~ a classic remake of a Hank Williams' song

When I was a kid I would hear Cotton Fields on the radio and have fun singing along and my dad would from time to time sing Jambalaya. A couple of great songs :)

June 22, 2008

Hank Williams

Like I've mentioned at other times, my dad loved Hank William's songs. When one of his songs would come over the radio or if we would play a record my Dad would listen intently. He had to stop sit down and lean back in the chair and just listen. He would listen to the music, he would listen to the words and the story they told. If the part in the song came up where there was some fiddle playin' or guitar pickin' Dad would tap his foot and grin real big. Although we were little, I knew it was time for my brother Kelly and I to be quiet.

I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry~ The words and the music cry out and you can relate to William's words because you can feel his lonesomeness.

June 23, 2008

Behold the Fowls of the Air

WAS in the act of kneeling down before the Lord my God,
when a little bird came and perched near my window, and thus preached to me:
"O thou grave man, look on me, and learn something,
if not the deepest lesson, then a true one.
Thy God made me, and the like of me;
and, if thou canst conceive it,
loves me and cares for me.
Thou studiest Him in great problems,
which oppress and confound thee:
thou losest sight of one half of His ways.
Learn to see thy God not in great mysteries only, but in me also.
His burden on me is light,
His yoke on me is easy;
but thou makest burdens and yokes for thyself which are very grievous to be borne.
Things deep as Hell and high as Heaven thou considerest overmuch;
but thou dost not 'consider the lilies' sufficiently.
lf thou couldst be as a lily before God,
for at least one hour in the twenty-four,
it would do thee good:
I mean, if thou couldst cease to will and to think, and be only.
Consider, the lily is as really from God as thou art,
and is a figure of something in Him--the like of which should also be in thee.
Thou longest to grow, but the lily grows without longing;
yes, without even thinking or willing,
grows and is beautiful both to God and man."
JOHN PULSFORD

This Day In History: June 23

Born this day in 1948 was Clarence Thomas~
associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court from 1991, whose appointment to replace Thurgood Marshall (the court's first African American justice) gave the court a conservative cast.
1314~
began the Battle of Bannockburn, a decisive engagement in Scottish history whereby the Scots defeated the English, regained their independence, and established Robert the Bruce as Robert I.
1961~
The Antarctic Treaty was enacted, reserving the entire continent for free and nonpolitical scientific investigation.
1940~
Sprinter Wilma Rudolph, the first American woman to win three track-and-field gold medals in a single Olympics, was born.
1925~
An expedition under A.H. MacCarthy and H.F. Lambert became the first to reach the summit of Mount Logan, the second highest mountain in North America.
1865~
The Cherokee chief and Confederate general Stand Watie surrendered at the close of the American Civil War—one of the last Confederate commanders to do so.
1817~
Popular English actor John Philip Kemble retired after his last performance, in which he played Coriolanus.
1298~
German King Adolf of Nassau was deposed in favour of Albert I.

June 24, 2008

Seek Ye First

My kids are writing out Matthew 6:25-34 this week. I am teaching them a song from that passage. I learned it when I was around 13 years old at church. It's a campfire sing-a-long Christian song. It's called Seek Ye First. It has four stanzas and all are Bible verses. This is a powerful song to have randomly bumping around in your head through out your day. It's words are inspired by the Holy Spirit of God. <3

June 27, 2008

Children of the Dust Bowl

I read a very good book recently by Jerry Stanley. It is called Children of the Dust Bowl. It is a true account of families who were farmers in Oklahoma during the Depression of the 1930's and then after a large drought dust storms came and blew away the top soil. Many families decided to pack up belongings and move to California where they could work harvesting crops. But the migration was too much and the "Okies" soon became hated by Californians.

This book is a true account of "Okie" children that were able to help build the school in a camp where they lived. A man named Leo Hart is the hero of this real life story. The book and movie, Grapes of Wrath, is good use along with Stanley's book.

Here's a website that tells of the area where the school existed. Check out the pictures of the author, Jerry Stanley.